Biometric 2016.

Gartner: Biometrics will sync with wearable boom

10/12/14

Influential research firm Gartner has predicted that as wearables become more mainstream, that biometric sensors will increasingly feature on them for authentication.

Wearable features will become less obtrusive, with by 30 percent of smart wearables will be completely unapparent to the eye by 2017, says Gartner

Biometrics will be playing an increasing role in the technology.

“By 2016, biometric sensors will be featured in 40 percent of smartphones shipped to end users”, finds Gartner.

“Fingerprint scanning will be the primary biometric feature introduced by most vendors, given its intuitive and unobtrusive usage. Other biometrics such as facial, iris, voice and palm vein authentication will also emerge but will remain relatively niche.”

Wearables will also feature biometrics as coupling devices to smartphones, with Gartner saying they will mostly obtain the biometric information to be passed onto the smartphone where the intelligence and authentication take place.

In October, Research and consultancy firm Goode Intelligence predicted that wearable technology will drive a “second wave” of adoption of biometric authentication following its more widespread use on smart devices.

“We believe that smartphones and tablets will be the first wave of consumer devices to be biometrically-enabled and this will quickly be followed by wearable technology” said Alan Goode, author of the report and founder of Goode Intelligence.